A Bitten Word Recipe
Sunday was Clay's birthday, and when we went to the Farmers Market that morning, there was a special treat: Fresh sweet corn made its first appearance of the year. Because really, who doesn't want corn for their birthday?
We were excited to see the corn, not only because we love to eat it, but also because we'd been waiting to share this recipe with you. Months ago, we developed this recipe for Chilled Sweet Corn Soup for Spenser Magazine, an online food publication that had reached out to us. In the most recent issue, they ran a Q&A with us that was accompanied by this recipe.
We're also very excited to share with you what's coming up in Spenser, which is a feature story we wrote about a rather adventurous weekend we had a little more than a month ago. That's all we'll say for now, but we'll leave you with this corn soup.
We rarely tire of just eating corn straight off the cob, but when we do, we make a simple corn soup just like this one that not only helps beat the summer heat, but also showcases the flavor of the corn itself.
Summer corn is a fleeting pleasure -- enjoy it while you can!
Chilled Sweet Corn Soup with Basil
A Recipe from TheBittenWord.com
Ingredients
4 cups fresh sweet corn kernels, removed from cobs (about 6 large ears); do not discard cobs
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 large white onion, diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
2/3 cup heavy cream
4 tablespoons fresh green or purple basil, chopped or torn into small pieces, plus more for garnish
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.
Heat a medium pot over high heat. Add 1/4 cup corn kernels to the dry pot. Cook, stirring frequently, until kernels are slightly charred, about 2 minutes. Remove corn and set aside.
Reduce heat to medium and melt butter in pot. And onion and sauté until softened and translucent, about 4 minutes. Add garlic and sauté until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add remaining corn. Using the back of a knife or a large tablespoon, make one last scrape of the corn cobs directly into the pot to collect any remaining kernels and milk from the cobs. Discard cobs. Add 4 cups of water to pot, bring to boil, then reduce heat and simmer until liquid is reduced by half, about 15 or 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, heat basil and cream over low heat, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes, in order to infuse the cream with the basil flavor.
Remove corn mixture from heat. Using a standing blender or an immersion blender, puree the mixture until smooth. Stir in basil-cream, salt and pepper. Chill soup at least one hour and up to 24 hours. Serve cold, topping each bowl with more basil and the reserved corn kernels.
